department from all encroachment on its powers, rights, and duties. In my judgment a compliance with the resolution which has been transmitted to me would be a surrender of duties and powers which the Constitution has conferred exclusively on the Executive, and therefore such compliance can not be made by me nor by the heads of Departments by my direction. The appointing power, so far as it is bestowed on the President by the Constitution, is conferred without reserve or qualification. The reason for the appointment and the responsibility of the appointment rest with him alone. I can not perceive anywhere in the Constitution of the United States any right conferred on the House of Representatives to hear the reasons which an applicant may urge for an appointment to office under the executive department, or any duty resting upon the House of Representatives by which it may become responsible for any such appointment.

Any assumption or misapprehension on the part of the House of Representatives of its duties and powers in respect to appointments by which it encroaches on the rights and duties of the executive department is to the extent to which it reaches dangerous, impolitic, and unconstitutional. For these reasons, so perfectly convincing to my mind, I beg leave respectfully to repeat, in conclusion, that I can not comply with the request contained in the above resolution. JOHN TYLER.

WASHINGTON, March 25, 1842.

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States:

Notwithstanding the urgency with which I have on more than one occasion felt it my duty to press upon Congress the necessity of providing the Government with the means of discharging its debts and maintaining inviolate the public faith, the increasing embarrassments of the Treasury impose upon me the indispensable obligation of again inviting your most serious attention to the condition of the finances. Fortunately for myself in thus bringing this important subject to your view for a deliberate and comprehensive examination in all its bearings, and I trust I may add for a final adjustment of it to the common advantage of the whole Union, I am permitted to approach it with perfect freedom and candor. As few of the burdens for which provision is now required to be made have been brought upon the country during my short administration of its affairs, I have neither motive nor wish to make them a matter of crimination against any of my predecessors. I am disposed to regard, as I am bound to treat, them as facts which can not now be undone, and as deeply interesting to us all, and equally imposing upon all the most solemn duties; and the only use I would make of the errors of the past is by a careful examination of their causes and character to avoid if possible the repetition of them in future. The condition of the country, indeed, is such as may well arrest the conflict of parties.

The conviction seems at length to have made its way to the minds of all that the disproportion between the public responsibilities and the means provided for meeting them is no casual nor transient evil. It is, on the contrary, one which for some years to come, notwithstanding a resort to all reasonable retrenchments and the constant progress of the country in population and productive power, must continue to increase under existing laws, unless we consent to give up or impair all our defenses in war and peace. But this is a thought which I am persuaded no patriotic mind would for a moment entertain. Without affecting an alarm, which I do not feel, in regard to our foreign relations, it may safely be affirmed that they are in a state too critical and involve too many momentous issues to permit us to neglect in the least, much less to abandon entirely, those means of asserting our rights without which negotiation is without dignity and peace without security.

In the report of the Secretary of the Treasury submitted to Congress at the commencement of the present session it is estimated that after exhausting all the probable resources of the year there will remain a deficit of about $14,000,000. With a view partly to a permanent system of revenue and partly to immediate relief from actual embarrassment, that officer recommended, together with a plan for establishing a Government exchequer, some expedients of a more temporary character, viz, the issuing of Treasury notes and the extension of the time for which the loan authorized to be negotiated by the act of the last session should be taken. Congress accordingly provided for an issue of Treasury notes to the amount of $5,000,000, but subject to the condition that they should not be paid away below par.

No measure connected with the last of the two objects above mentioned was introduced until recently into the House of Representatives. Should the loan bill now pending before that body pass into a law for its present amount, there would still remain a deficit of $2,500,000. It requires no argument to show that such a condition of the Treasury is incompatible not only with a high state of public credit, but with anything approaching to efficiency in the conduct of public affairs. It must be obvious even to the most inexperienced minds that, to say nothing of any particular exigency, actual or imminent, there should be at all times in the Treasury of a great nation, with a view to contingencies of ordinary occurrence, a surplus at least equal in amount to the above deficiency. But that deficiency, serious as it would be in itself, will, I am compelled to say, rather be increased than diminished without the adoption of measures adequate to correct the evil at once. The stagnation of trade and business, in some degree incident to the derangement of the national finances and the state of the revenue laws, holds out but little prospect of relief, in the ordinary course of things, for some time to come.

Under such circumstances I am deeply impressed with the necessity of meeting the crisis with a vigor and decision which it imperatively

demands at the hands of all intrusted with the conduct of public affairs. The gravity of the evil calls for a remedy proportioned to it. No slight palliatives or occasional expedients will give the country the relief it needs. Such measures, on the contrary, will in the end, as is now manifest to all, too surely multiply its embarrassments. Relying, as I am bound to do, on the representatives of a people rendered illustrious among nations by having paid off its whole public debt, I shall not shrink from the responsibility imposed upon me by the Constitution of pointing out such measures as will in my opinion insure adequate relief. I am the more encouraged to recommend the course which necessity exacts by the confidence which I have in its complete success. The resources of the country in everything that constitutes the wealth and strength of nations are so abundant, the spirit of a most industrious, enterprising, and intelligent people is so energetic and elastic, that the Government will be without the shadow of excuse for its delinquency if the difficulties which now embarrass it be not speedily and effectually removed.

From present indications it is hardly doubtful that Congress will find it necessary to lay additional duties on imports in order to meet the ordinary current expenses of the Government. In the exercise of a sound discrimination having reference to revenue, but at the same time necessarily affording incidental protection to manufacturing industry, it seems equally probable that duties on some articles of importation will have to be advanced above 20 per cent. In performing this important work of revising the tariff of duties, which in the present emergency would seem to be indispensable, I can not too strongly recommend the cultiva tion of a spirit of mutual harmony and concession, to which the Govern ment itself owes its origin, and without the continued exercise of which jarring and discord would universally prevail.

An additional reason for the increase of duties in some instances beyond the rate of 20 per cent will exist in fulfilling the recommendations already made, and now repeated, of making adequate appropria tions for the defenses of the country.

By the express provision of the act distributing the proceeds of the sales of the public lands among the States its operation is ipso facto to cease so soon as the rate of the duties shall exceed the limits prescribed in the act.

In recommending the adoption of measures for distributing the proceeds of the public lands among the States at the commencement of the last session of Congress such distribution was urged by arguments and considerations which appeared to me then and appear to me now of great weight, and was placed on the condition that it should not render necessary any departure from the act of 1833. It is with sincere regret that I now perceive the necessity of departing from that act, because I am well aware that expectations justly entertained by some of the States

HENRY CLAY

He was a man of large natural ability, but he lacked the training of a systematic education. He learned early to appreciate his heaven-born endowments and to rely upon them for success in his chosen career. Of sanguine temperament, quick perception, irresistible energy and enthusiastic disposition, he was well fitted to be a party advocate, and was the greatest parliamentary leader in our history. He knew men well, but he had no knowledge of books. The gaming table had for him allurements that he could not find in the library. According to the manners of his time, he drank to excess. His warm heart made him a multitude of friends; his impulsive action and positive bearing raised up enemies; yet at his death he left not an enemy behind him. He was withal a man of inflexible integrity. Straitened in pecuniary circumstances during a large part of his congressional career, he nevertheless held himself aloof from all corruption. Other Americans have been intellectually greater, others have been more painstaking, others still have been greater benefactors to their country; yet no man has been loved as the people of the United States loved Henry Clay.

RHODES.

Born in backwoods poverty in 1777, he obtained a piecemeal schooling, studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1797, sent to the Kentucky legislature in 1803, to the United States Senate in 1808; afterwards served in the lower house, being elected Speaker five times; Secretary of State 1825-29 under J. Q. Adams; U. S. Senator 1831–1842; unsuccessful presidential candidate 1832 and 1844; U. S. Senator 1849 to 1852. When Calhoun and his South Carolina nullifiers found that Jackson meant to punish treason with hanging, it was Clay who arranged a compromise. He was the guiding spirit in all those measures which averted civil war from 1820 to 1850.

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See the articles entitled "Compromises of the Constitution," "Compromise of 1833," Compromise of 1850,” “Missouri Compromise,” in the Encyclopedic Index.